Surrounded
by princessmikey14
Summary: Hayden has lived a normal life with her husband and three kids in a small apartment in Atlanta. They have their problems but they're still happy until the outbreak hits. I'm not sure where I'm going to go with this...eventual OC/? I'm going to let the story flow and not do any pairings until I can test the chemistry of the characters.
1. Chapter 1

"Mom, can I go play with the other kids in the neighborhood?" Jensen asked his mother.

"I don't know if that's a good idea," Hayden told her middle son. He was only eight and he had played outside in the city plenty of times, but things were going kind of haywire lately.

"I think he'll be a'right," Daren, her husband said. "Jus' come runnin' if somethin' goes wrong. Okay with ya, Hay?"

"Yeah, be careful though, really," she told him.

"Thanks mom, thanks dad!" he got up from the dinner table and ran out the front door. There was only about an hour and a half of daylight left so he didn't have much time to play.

"Why don't you play with them too, Jonah?" Hayden asked her oldest, he was eleven.

He shrugged. Jonah preferred to read, he was kind of anti-social. "I'm trying to finish my book," he replied.

"What about you, Mara?" she turned her attention to her youngest.

"I was jus' gonna play with my dolls," Mara replied. She was only five-and the only girl.

Daren stood up and started clearing off the table and taking the dishes to the sink. Everyone else dispersed from the table. Hayden went into the kitchen and began helping Daren.

"They're all growing up so fast," Hayden said, it wasn't long ago that the children didn't want to leave their parents' sides.

"They are," he agreed. It kind of bothered him that they were growing up in a big city with no yard. Daren had grown up on a farm with big open spaces and plenty of room to do whatever. He never had to worry about being mugged or killed in the streets. And, his parents certainly never had to worry about him joining a gang or getting wrapped up in drugs, that was something that Daren and Hayden had to fear, living in the city.

"You don't have to do the dishes, y'know? I can do them," she told him.

"Nope, 's my turn."

"If you say so."

Daren refused any of Hayden's help as he did dishes, so she sat there and kept him company. They made small talk but soon, they heard screaming from the hallway. The loud cries made the hair on the back of Hayden's neck stand up and they sent shivers down her spine. She ran for the door and she heard a muffled 'mom!' be called out. She opened the apartment door and found her son, with a bloody arm and tears streaming down his cheeks.

"What happened?" she knelt down to his level and took his arm in her hands.

"This guy...he..." Jensen had to pause because his tears were taking over, nothing like that had ever happened to him. "A guy bit me..."

"Come inside." A guy _bit_ him? That didn't make any sense. Why would somebody bite anybody else? "Daren, get me the rubbing alcohol and the hydrogen peroxide, would you?"

Without question, Daren went into the bathroom and grabbed the two bottles, he also grabbed a large band-aid. Jensen had somewhat of a habit of falling and getting himself hurt; he was the risk taker of all of the kids and usually ended up getting himself injured along the way.

Hayden led Jensen into the kitchen, picked him up, and put him on the counter. His blue eyes looked even brighter from the tears falling down his cheeks, hers usually did the same thing, when she cried it made her normally dark blue eyes look like a much brighter color.

Daren came back with the supplies and gave it all to his wife. She grabbed two dish towels and set one aside. She poured a little bit of peroxide on it and dabbed his arm, it didn't really burn, but he still winced. "This one will sting," she warned him, grabbing the rubbing alcohol. She put that on his wound to take out the infection and then lightly blew on his skin to try and take some of the sting out. She put the band-aid over it and gave him a small smile.

"What's going on?" Jonah walked out of his room and saw his younger brother sitting on the counter and rolled his eyes. "What did you get dared to do this time?" That was one of the reasons why Jonah didn't hang out with the neighborhood kids, Jensen was always getting hurt because of him.

"Some guy bit me," Jensen pouted.

"Bit you?"

"Yes. He had like this ugly, rotten face and he bit me..."

"Like a zombie?"

"Zombies aren't real, Jonah," Jensen said harshly. Jonah was always reading and he loved fantasy books, ones about mythical creatures and other strange situations.

"Maybe they are, don't come crying to me when you turn into one."

"Boys," Hayden warned. "Quit. Nobody's turning into a _zombie_."

"That's what you think," Jonah murmured, walking toward the living room. He turned on the TV and the news station happened to be on already, even though he thought that Mara had been watching Disney Channel earlier.

_"Authorities are suggesting that everybody stay indoors and avoid all of those who are infects. Once again, the symptoms for this mysterious infection include fever, disorientation, confusion, and..." _the power shut off and they could hear screaming from down the street.

"Zombies, I told you," Jonah mumbled.

"Daddy! Mommy!" Mara came running from her bedroom, her blonde curly hair flowing behind her as she grabbed Daren around his waist before beginning to cry, he picked her up and allowed her to sob into his shoulder.

Hayden wasn't sure what to do. This wasn't something that Jonah had been reading in one of his books. Something really was going on, something dangerous. "Jonah," she called to her son. "Come help me with this..."

She went over to the kitchen table and waited for him to walk over, but instead Daren came over. He set Mara on the ground and placed his hands under the lips of the smooth wooden table. Together, they drug it across the older, worn carpet and placed the table in front of the door.

"Flip it on its side," Daren advised. She assisted him and then they started stacking the rest of their old furniture in front of the wooden door. They had gotten nearly everything there when they first got married. "Kids, I want y'all to get yer stuff together, one bag each, nothin' that ain't important."

"What are you planning?" Hayden asked.

"We're leavin' here, maybe not t'night, but we ain't stayin' forever, I want 'em to be prepared," he explained. "Why don't ya go pack a bag for you an' me?"

"What are you going to do?"

"Don' worry 'bout it," he kissed her head and they parted ways.

"Mommy will you help me?" Mara asked, her voice small and timid. She looked up with her warm brown eyes, wanting nothing more than for her parents to stay at her side. All of this was dumbfounding to her, she didn't understand how things could just go wrong like this.

"Sure honey, then you can help me, okay?" Mara nodded and took her mother's hand and led her into her bedroom, which they had painted pink in early spring to celebrate Mara's new big girl bed. Toys scattered all over the floor and stuffed toys stacked high on her bed.

"What 'bout all my dolls?" she asked with a pout.

"You can bring two," Hayden said. "You're going to need clothes more than you need toys."

"What about Zebra? Are we just going to leave her here?" Zebra was the stray cat that they had more or less adopted, but she lived outside because their land lord didn't allow cats. Mara had named her Zebra because she was all white with one black stripe down the middle of her back.

"We're probably not leaving right away," Hayden bit the inside of her cheek. She wanted to avoid the question as much as possible. She didn't know what would happen to the cat so she couldn't exactly tell Mara anything definite.

"When we do?"

"I'm not sure," she admitted. She and Daren had always thought that honesty was the best policy when it came to their children. They had always treated the kids like little adults. Jonah especially acted like he was grown up.

"I hope we get to take her with us..." Mara bowed her head thoughtfully. The thought of leaving the only pet she had ever had behind scared her.

"We can't leave," Hayden walked up to Daren, crossed her arms, and frowned. "Jensen has a fever and he's just getting worse..." Daren could see that his wife was on the verge tears and a deep frown fell on his face.

"Do ya think that Jonah coul' be right?" he knew that he couldn't show weakness, Hayden needed for him to be strong. "What if this is..." he dropped his voice down to nothing above a whisper. "Zombies?"

"It's not...He's going to be..." she was whispering too, but her face contorted and she lost control of her emotions. She wanted to be the strong one for once. Daren had always been the rock and she guessed that he needed to be for a little while longer because she simply wasn't strong enough to do it. He wrapped his arms around his petite wife and kissed her head, allowing her to cry against him.

"T'night we're gonna sleep in the livin' room together an' 'm gonna watch over Jensen an' yer gonna sleep, a'right?"

She murmured a response but he couldn't understand her because she continued to cry against him.

"Is mom okay?" Jonah asked, walking up to where is parents were, he set his fully packed bag near the front door. By now, they had lit candles around the apartment and everyone was trying to ignore the sounds from outside. There was screaming, car alarms, and sickly sounding moans.

"She's a'right, can ya go tell yer sister to come into the livin' room an' bring 'er bag in here?"

He nodded dutifully and did what his father asked.

"I need to go back to Jensen," Hayden pulled away and wiped her tear stained cheeks. She didn't want her youngest son to see her this way. She only hoped that the low light in the bedroom would help to hide her face from him. If she couldn't be strong for Daren, she had to at least have some strength for her son.

She steeled herself outside of her bedroom door and carefully walked into the room. She had never seen her little boy so sick in her life and it made her heart ache. She wanted nothing more than to take the sickness for herself and for him to be better, but she knew that was impossible.

"Hey Sweetie," she greeted, kneeling down beside the bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Not good...everything hurts mom..." With every little move, he felt like a thousand tiny swords were stabbing his muscles and trying to separate them from his bones, the pain wasn't anything that he couldn've thought up or imagined. He had broken both arms, his right elbow, his left leg, and his collar bone, but none of those could compare to the pain that he was in. "Can you have Jonah come in here so that I can talk to him...please?" If anybody knew anything about this, it would probably be his older brother. Jonah had read more books than Jensen could count and he assumed that his brother had to know something, anything.

"Sure, hold on a minute. Do you want water or anything?" Jensen shook his head and Hayden left, reluctantly. "Jonah, your brother wants to talk to you..."

"Okay," Jonah had just walked out of Mara's room with her and her bag.

"Be careful...okay?" Hayden whispered that part because she didn't want Jensen to hear, she didn't want to have to be cautious around her child, but she didn't want anything to happen to anybody else because of her carelessness.

He nodded, he had always been the quiet one of all of the children, that was why he tended to stick to nodding rather than being vocal about what he was thinking. He could be sarcastic when he wanted to be and he could be talkative, he just tended not to be.

"What is it?" Jonah asked his younger brother.

"Do you think...Do you think that this is actually about zombies?" Jensen asked.

"I was just kidding with you," Jonah replied.

"But...you said-"  
"You're the one always calling me a know-it-all that reads too much," he shrugged.

"When I'm actually asking for your help...you won't give it to me?"

"I don't know what this is any more than you do," Jonah said. "But, based off the book that I'm reading right now...You would've become one already, it only takes twelve seconds in that one..."

"So am I going to get better?"

"You've had more broken bones than anybody I've ever known," Jonah was happy with the way that he was, he was happy staying inside and reading while his brother had the adventures, but sometimes he was a little jealous of Jensen's bravery. "You're tough...I'm sure you'll be fine."

"I hope so...for mom's sake..." Jonah frowned, he knew that his mother would probably lose her mind if any of them died. She was overly protective and Jonah had already seen her crying and nothing had even happened yet.

"Jensen!" Mara came running through the bedroom door and nearly ran into her brother. She didn't resemble her siblings much, she had long, curly, blonde hair, brown eyes and freckles dotting her nose and under her eyes, she looked more like their father, except he had dark hair too, nobody was really sure where she got her blonde locks. Both boys hair their mother's medium brown hair and dark blue eyes that tended to change.

"Hey there Mara," like all siblings, they had their rivalries, but when it came to something like this, they did need each other.

"Are you gonna get better?" she asked, on the brink of tears.

"He's gonna be fine," Jonah assured her.

"Are you sure?" she tilted her head and looked at him seriously. He nodded and smiled at her. "Okay...I'm gonna go back with mommy and daddy." Slowly, she walked out of the room and closed the door again, she could tell that the boys wanted a few minutes to themselves.

"She'll hate you if you just lied to her, y'know," the eight year old told his older brother.

"I didn't...you'll be fine, Jensen, okay?"

"Lay down on the couch, guys," Hayden encouraged her two kids that weren't ill.

"I want you to lay with me, mommy," Mara pleaded.

"In a minute," she promised. She moved across the room to where Daren was standing. "Are you sure you don't want us all to sleep in there with Jensen?" Hayden asked, looking at her husband carefully.

"'M sure," he told her, he couldn't risk his family and he wanted to watch over Jensen at the same time so this was the only solution he could think of. "I love ya, Hay," he gave her a sweet kiss.

She wanted to check in on Jensen before lying down with Mara. She walked into the bedroom but he looked a lot worse than he had been earlier.

"Mom," he moaned.

"I'm here," she walked over and pressed a kiss to his forehead. He was burning up. If things were different, she probably would have already taken him to the hospital, but she knew that now, they probably could not even get to the hospital. So, she did the best that she could so so she started piling more blankets on top of him.

"Tuck me in?"

Hayden tucked the blankets around his upper body and pressed multiple kisses on his forehead and cheeks just as she had done when he was much smaller. "I love you."

"I love you too mom," he gave her the best smile that he could muster.

Hayden had yet to get a minute of sleep. She was too busy worrying but she couldn't move from the couch. Her daughter was was asleep practically on top of her. She tried to soothe herself by brushing back Mara's hair, but it doesn't doing much.

"Jonah," she called softly. He was by her feet at the other end of the couch and she wasn't sure if he was awake or not.

"Yeah?" he replied. Jonah couldn't sleep either, the awful sounds from outside hadn't stopped.

"Would you do me a favor? Will you go check on your dad and brother? Please?"

"Sure," he was glad to have an excuse to move. He rose from the couch and went into his parents' bedroom. The sight before him shocked him. Jensen was flopped over the side of the bed with a bloody hole on the back of his head. There were a few droplets on the carpet as well. Jonah wasn't sure what to make of this, it was making him sick to even think about it.

"Jonah, get out," Daren told his oldest harshly. "Tell yer momma an' sister to get outta here..."

"Dad, you're bleeding..." the bright red liquid dripped onto the carpet from the inside of Daren's wrist.

"I know...I don't know what this is, Jonah, but I need ya to get yer mom an' tell 'er to get the bag under the kitchen sink an' I want y'all to leave, I want ya to go as far 'way as possible, find some place safe..."

"Jensen's dead, how did that even..."

"Yer bother wasn't 'imself. He bit me too. I'm gonna get what he had. Y'all need to get outta here while ya still have a chance."

"What about you?"

"Jonah! I need you to just-"

"Daren?" Hayden crept into the room and looked at her husband sadly. She didn't dare look at her youngest son, she couldn't look at him if he was _dead_.

"Y'all need to leave, y'know that. Go. I'm done, I've got the fever, Hay. There's a bag that I want ya to get. Bring it here."

Hayden slowly nodded before going into the kitchen. Daren had apparently told Jonah something because he came running out of the room as Hayden came back with the bag. She put it on the floor in front of Daren and he unzipped it, he pulled out one gun and held it out to her.

"Take this an' I need ya to shoot me."

"What?"

"Hayden, ya heard me."

"How can you ask me to-"

"If ya don' 'm gonna become somethin' 'm not. I love ya darlin' but yer gonna keep our kids safe, ya've gotta do it."

"Daren..."

"I love ya, an' I love our kids. Make sure that they know that. Put yer hand on this," he brought the gun up to his head. He wanted her do it so that so that she could be stronger, so that she could have the strength to keep their family safe. "Tell our kids how much I love 'em."

"Daren-"

"Hayden, ya have to do this," he told her sternly. The tears began to fall down her cheeks, she couldn't stop them. She slowly brought her hand up over the gun and Daren placed her finger over the trigger. They had never believed in suicide, that was why Hayden had to do it.

"I love you," she said before squeezing the trigger.

_Bang_.

**AN: I hope you guys like this, I'm pretty proud of it. I hope that you all agree. Reviews would be wonderful, I like to hear everybody's opinions, but there is no need to just be mean. And, Hayden is supposed to appear week yet because I don't feel that a regular person would just be ready to kick some butt when this happened (unless you're Daryl). **

**-Michelle-**


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Guest, I'm glad that you liked it, but can you please elaborate on my spelling? I do spell check on my computer and then I do it on the site too so I'm not sure what you mean...I know that I personally have trouble with spelling but it is usually fixed before I put it on the site. Some of the spelling errors are supposed to be there, like "yer" for example, I'm trying to make the southern accent more prominent. So, if you're judging spelling please disregard anything in quotation.**

She looked familiar. Too familiar for Shane to not be able to put his finger on it. And the children with the tear stained cheeks looked far too familiar as well. He stood closer to the old Winnebago and tried to figure out as Amy led the three through the camp explaining a few simple things to them. The woman continuously spun the wedding ring on her finger as they walked, a nervous tic, he noticed. It was similar to the way he ran his hand through his hair or adjusted his hat. Everybody had something that they had a habit of doing, this was what this woman did apparently.

It was really starting to bother him that she was so familiar, yet he couldn't put a name to the face. As they began to walk toward the quarry, he found his eyes traveling down her backside and stopping at her rear end, it wasn't his fault that his male instincts took over, but he was glad that they did because that was when it clicked. She was his younger brother's wife and those were their children. He also realized that the ring she had been fiddling with had been his grandmother's. Even though Shane was older, he had never been married, nor had he been close to it, so his younger brother got the ring.

Realizing that the children were his niece and nephew, he felt like he should do something, but he couldn't help but wonder where Daren was and he could have sworn that he had two nephews and a niece, but it had been nearly five years since he had seen them, so he assumed that he was wrong.

Shane jogged over to Amy, Hayden, and the children and gave them all an easy smile. "Hayden," he greeted. She looked at him with her dark blue eyes, puzzled for one a moment before her face broke into shock.

"What are the odds?" she asked, the corners of her lips twitching slightly. But, she didn't smile, she felt like if she smiled, she would be betraying Daren somehow, she did not deserve happiness anymore. She felt that she deserved to curl into a ball and just cry. She only didn't because of the kids, they needed her too much now.

"Don' be shy," Shane pulled her into a quick hug. He had picked up on her hesitance and he recognized something in her eyes that he had briefly seen from Lori. "Where's-"

"Don't you know?" she didn't want to say it, letting it come off as a sarcastic expression was so much simpler than actually letting the words 'he died' pass her lips. She knew that her teeth would stop them and then she would feel that familiar lump in her throat and she would feel the pressure under her eyes build up until a volcano of tears and sobs erupted.

"I'm-"

"Don't. Do you have any extra tents?"

"'M sure we do," Shane bent down to the kids' level and grinned at them. "I don' know if ya remember me, but 'm yer Uncle Shane."

"If you're our uncle, how come I've never met ya 'fore?" Mara asked.

Shane looked up to Hayden, but she refused to meet his eyes, so he took that as a 'don't you dare say anything'. "Adult stuff. I don' think I ever got to meet ya, what's yer name?"

"Mara. This is my brother, Jonah," she poked the older boy in the arm.

"Don't poke me, Mara," Jonah mumbled in a scolding tone.

"Maybe I wanna," Mara stuck her tongue out at her older brother.

"Ya remind me a me when I was little," Shane chuckled. "I'll show y'all to a tent," he added, leading them back towards the RV. "Hey Dale," he called, once they were outside of it.

An older man wearing a fisherman's hat poked his head out of the door and upon seeing the three newest members, he made his way out of the RV and gave them a friendly smiled.

"What can I do for you folks?" he asked.

"We need a tent, if you have one," Hayden tried to return his smile, but it came out as more of a nervous straight face.

"Let me see what I can do, I think we may have given out the last one though..." his voice trailed off as he walked back inside of the RV.

"Mommy, I don' wanna sleep in a tent," Mara complained. "The ground is hard..."

"We don't have much of a choice, honey," Hayden replied gently. She was too wore out go into further detail, Mara was only five and didn't know much about what was going on.

"Here but it's kinda small," Dale came back outside and held out a child sized tent to them.

Shane looked from Hayden to the two kids and frowned. Hayden was tall, she was just under five foot eight inches and there was no way that she would be able to stretch out and sleep comfortably in there.

"Thank you very much," she said kindly. Shane knew that she knew she would not sleep well in the tent, but he also knew that she also had the nature to take what she got and get over it when it came to kindness from strangers, especially.

"Ya can set up over by me if ya want," Shane suggested. He figured that she wouldn't want to be completely by herself, at least they knew each other.

"Okay," she wanted any shred of safety that she could have. Now, she was a woman with two kids in a camp full of strange people that she didn't know. She didn't know what their motives towards her or her children were so she figured that having her tent near Shane would be her best bet.

Shane led the way over to where he was set up, he had a whole tent to himself and it was three times the size of the tent Dale had just given Hayden. He knew that the children would be okay in the small tent, but again, he realized that Hayden was tall and she would never be comfortable in the little tent so he scratched the back of his neck nervously. He figured that she would graciously tell him that it was okay and she would be fine anyway, but he had to at least offer. "Ya wanna like...share with me an' let the kids sleep by 'emselves?"

"You think that's a good idea?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Jus' thought I'd offer," he shrugged. "If ya change yer mind lemme know."

"Thanks," she replied. "Jonah, do you remember how to set up a tent?" she turned her attention to her eldest son, who nodded in response. He had only been camping twice and it had been a while. The first time, he was only five and Jensen stayed home with their dad, the next time, he was nine and Jensen was six, they both went that time. They had planned on going again later that summer because Daren had figured that Mara was old enough to go on her first camping trip, but obviously they hadn't gotten the chance to.

"I'll help you," he murmured softly as Hayden began taking the tent out of the bag, he knew from experience that it was a lot easier with two people.

"That would be great," she gave him a small smile, even though she still felt the guilt deep inside of her for even faking being happy. She completely blamed herself for everything. She could not believe that it was pure fate, Daren may have been a fatalist in life, but she always believed that you chose your own fate and they had to go wrong somewhere for things to end up they way that they did.

"What are you reading?" it was the first time that Carl had noticed the new boy in camp, they were about the same age, but this boy was reading. Carl hated to read, he thought that it was a waste of time and he would rather spend his time playing video games or watching television.

"_To Kill a Mockingbird_," Jonah replied, not removing his nose from the book. He wanted to read about something that would take his mind off of the current predicament that they were in. He wanted to read about a time when their biggest problem was racism, it was such a simple and silly problem that it kind of relaxed him. He wished that he could be like Scout, she was so carefree growing up. Jonah wished that he could spend his days trying to get a look at Boo Radley rather than run from once humans that were trying to kill him and his family.

"Isn't that book like old? Don't you read comic books?"

"It's not _that _old and it's actually a good book."

"If we don't have school anymore, why are your reading?" Carl wrinkled his nose and made a weird face.

"You wouldn't understand," Jonah replied dismissively. He never tried to explain to why he liked to read to Jensen or anybody at school because they didn't get it.

"What's your name anyway?"

"Jonah."

"Carl."

"Jonah, why don't you go change...I would like to wash that shirt," Hayden walked up with a basket containing her own clothes from the day before and Mara's as well.

"How are you going to wash them?" Jonah didn't see any washers around.

"In the quarry. Mara's going to come help you can too, if you'd like."

"That's okay, I'll just hang around here." Jonah walked back to the tent, changed, and brought his dirty clothes to his mother. While in the tent, he also dropped off his book, deciding quit reading for the day. He realized that he should probably familiarize himself with the camp and the people in it.

He began walking around a bit, he noticed people that he had seen when they first arrived, they were mostly sitting around talking. But, Jonah soon found a smaller camp with one tent that he hadn't seen before. A singular man sitting on a log, holding a limp squirrel body was the only person that Jonah saw.

Curiosity got the better of him. Why would he have a dead squirrel? Jonah found himself inching closer to the man's camp. He used the tree for coverage as he quietly watched the man work diligently at dissecting and removing the organs from the squirrel. Jonah wanted to look a bit closer at the process so he stepped forward but his sneaker landed on a small twig and it snapped.

The man's attention was ripped from the squirrel and he looked up at the tree. His blue eyes trained on the boy peeking out from behind the tree and he sent a glare that way. "Whatcha think yer doin'?"

"I was just..." Jonah didn't like confrontation, that was why he never got in trouble. He had this fear of being yelled at by adults.

"Jus' what?"

"I was just curious...What are you doing to that squirrel?" he started to step closer, his cheeks a bright red color.

"Why do ya care?"

"I don't know...Are you planning on eating that? I read about cleaning game once...That was what you were doing right?"

"Yeah. It ain't nothin' ya can learn from a book," Daryl wasn't sure what to make of the boy coming out of nowhere into his camp and watching him. At first, he was annoyed, but he was a little surprised that some kid from the city knew anything about what he was doing.

"Can I help you?" Jonah wanted to do something courageous, he wanted to be like Jensen. This was something that Jensen would do, he would have the guts to ask the scary guy if he could help clean out dead squirrels.

Daryl thought for a minute. It did take a while to clean out all the squirrels and maybe an extra set of hands. "Ya gotta shut up an' listen."

"Okay," Jonah agreed. He sat on the log next to the man and awaited instructions. "I'm Jonah."

"Daryl."

Down at the quarry, Hayden met a few of the other members of camp. There was Andrea, Amy's older sister; Jacqui, an older African-American woman who continuously made Hayden chuckle; Carol, who was also older but seemed incredibly soft-spoken; and then there was Miranda, a Hispanic woman who didn't seem to say much either. But, they all loved Mara's unwavering energy. She made the group a woman laugh so much and it made washing clothes seem like a lot less of a chore than it was.

"So what do I need to know about things around here? Or well what can you tell me so far?" the camp had only been established about a day before Hayden arrived, but she still figured that they knew a lot more than she did about the people.

"Other than the people who aren't here, there's Dale-have you met him?" Amy was the first one to speak, she was the youngest one there, other than Mara.

"I have, he seems like such a sweet man."

"He is," Amy agreed. "There's also Jim, he helps Dale a lot but he doesn't seem to say much...Um, there's Lori, she just lost her husband too...Let's see...What else?" she looked to the other women for help.

"The Dixon brothers," Andrea said, her tone low.

"What's so bad about them?" Hayden assumed that it had to be something bad, the way that she was talking.

"I don't know much about the younger one," Amy began. "But, the older one is bad news."

"What's so bad about him?"

"He's-"  
They all heard footsteps behind them and looked over their shoulder, an Asian man wearing a baseball cap made his way toward the group by the quarry.

"Ladies," he greeted. "I thought that you might like some detergent," he smiled, handing them a blue bottle.

"Thanks honey," Jacqui replied. "Glenn, this is Hayden, Hayden this is Glenn. He volunteered to make a run into the city, all by himself."

"That was very nice of you," Hayden said, nodding to him. He gave her a soft smile in response.

"I've got other stuff I need to pass out, it was nice meeting you, Hayden."

"You too."

The women went back to work on washing laundry for a few moments before any of them spoke again.

"How old are you, anyway?" Amy asked out of curiosity.

"Amy," Andrea said, giving her a scolding look.

"She's okay," Hayden assured them, tucking her hair behind her ear. "I just turned thirty a little over two weeks ago."

"Mommy, is thirty old?" Mara asked.

"Honey, I can't tell you what I wouldn't give to be thirty again," Jacqui said, smiling at the little girl.

"Oh my God, I'll kill myself before I turn thirty!" Amy hated the idea of being considered old.

"You'll be there in a little over a year," Andrea pointed out.

"No I won't. I'm turning twenty-five," the younger blonde told her sister quickly. Andrea just rolled her eyes.

Once they all finished their laundry, they made their way back to camp as one large group.

"Hayden, isn't that your son?" Amy pointed to the little boy with his back to him as he sat over at the Dixons' camp with another man who Hayden didn't recognize.

"I think so...Um...Mara, can you follow them the rest of the way back to camp?" she wasn't necessarily worried about Jonah, he had a great judge of character, she just liked knowing who her son was hanging around with. She walked up and held her basket at her side.

"Hi mom," Jonah greeted.

"Hi," Hayden answered. "What're you up to?" she addressed her son.

"Daryl taught me how to clean a squirrel," the blue-eyed boy shrugged.

"Well that was nice of him," she looked to the man who hadn't looked up from the squirrel he was cleaning yet. He didn't seem too bothered by her presence. "I'm Hayden," she introduced herself.

"Daryl," he replied gruffly, still not looking up.

"You're not bothering Daryl, are you?"

"He's fine," the dark-haired man finally looked up from the squirrel, but he didn't meet Hayden's eyes.

"Good," she nodded, starting to walk away. "Be careful with that knife," she added, looking over her shoulder at Jonah.

When Hayden made her way back to the other women, they all stared at her for a long minute. "So?" Amy finally asked.

"So what?" Hayden asked, beginning to hang some of the clothes on the line.

"So what happened?" Jacqui asked.

"Nothing...Daryl was teaching Jonah how to clean a squirrel, I left them alone..." They all just looked at her like she was crazy. "My husband and I always taught our kids not to judge a book by its cover, I don't know him so how can I deny my son a very important skill just because he looks like he could be a bad influence? I trust Jonah and if he's going to make mistakes, he has to make them for himself." She may not have been the most physically strong person, but she knew what she wanted to do as a parent and she wanted to raise her children well-rounded adults, they couldn't rely on her forever.

**AN: I feel like the first half was stronger than the second, but I hope that you guys liked it. Reviews are lovely :)**


	3. Chapter 3

"Are we ever gonna discuss it?" Shane asked Hayden as they sat atop the RV on watch. It was very early in the morning and the sun wasn't even up yet. She had taken watch with him a few times just because she felt like she needed to so something more for the group than just doing laundry.

"No," she stared off into the distance and avoided his brown eyes completely. It was amazing how much he reminded her of Daren at times. "I don't see a point, that was another life and we don't need to talk about it now. That world is dead, we live for the now. Just let it go."

"It made my own brother stop talkin' for me for years. I don' wanna jus' let it go. Why'd ya have to tell me anyway?"

"Because he was my husband and I loved him...I still love him and I would do anything to have him here. I want to go back to pretending that we are friends, alright? Can I please have that?" She wanted to hold on to something, even if it was only an illusion, she had already lost her husband and her youngest son, she didn't need to lose anymore.

"We don' have to pretend...I'll let it go."  
"Thank you," she wiped her eyes, realizing that she had been crying. She didn't see a point in cutting the stitches out of an old wound. The big blow up had happened five years ago but the actual cause had happened seven years before that. He rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She rested her elbows on her knees and buried her face in her hands, willing herself not to cry any more.

"'S okay to cry y'know," moved his chair a little closer to hers and looked at her carefully. Her dark hair fell over her face and he pushed it back. He knew that she hadn't cried over Daren's death since she had arrived, well he hadn't seen her do so anyway. "Ya don' have to be strong for me..." he also realized that she was simply being strong for the children and that was why she hadn't actually bawled her eyes out.

Hayden looked up at him and gave him a nervous chuckle, her face and eyes shining with wet, salty tears. She did something that surprised him though, she wrapped her arms around his neck and cried into his shoulder. It was amazing how much he and Daren were alike, they even smelled similar. She already knew this, of course, they used to see each other all of the time, but it was one of those things that she had more or less forgotten.

"He deserved better than me," Hayden sniffed and pulled away. "He should have divorced me and found someone else..."

"Daren wouldn't have wanted that, Hayden," he said softly. He realized the situation that Hayden was in was very similar to Lori's, that was why Shane was more comfortable in this situation than he had been the first time around.

"If we wouldn't of had Mara, he would have left me..." She had to stop crying. She let it all out now and be done, she couldn't let her kids see this. "Will you teach me how to shoot a gun later?"

Shane found himself nodding before he had thought it through. Hayden needed to blow off some steam and he figured that they could go somewhere for her to do that and it would help her. "We'll go somewhere outta the way later."

"That'd be great...I think that Jonah was planning on helping Daryl anyway...I don't think that Amy would mind to keep an eye on Mara for a while."

"What do ya mean 'bout Jonah helpin' Daryl?"

"He's been helping Daryl get the squirrels and stuff ready to cook, I don't know that's not exactly my area of expertise."

"Yer lettin' 'im hang 'round with _Daryl_?"

"Yes I am. I don't see the harm in it. He's learning a really important skill and I think that it's good for him. Before, he always had his nose in a book-which don't get me wrong, I love that, but he needs some real world experience."

Shane didn't agree with Jonah spending time around Daryl but it wasn't his place to say anything, Lori let Shane parent Carl, but he knew that Hayden had it handled.

"Ready to go do some target practice?" Shane came up in front of the clothes line where Hayden and Lori were hanging clothes. It was one of the rare moments, Hayden realized, that Lori actually did something than stand around.

"Let me finish this up," she only had three shirts and a pair of pants left to hang up. But, Shane came around the other side of the clothes line and picked up a shirt before clipping it on the line. Lori gave him an annoyed look before throwing the shirt she was holding down and stomping away with a huff. "What's her problem?"

"Dunno, she'll be fine though," he gave a shrug. He always hated when women freaked out over nothing.

"Go talk to her, I'll finish this up," Hayden urged. She didn't want to come between Shane and Lori, if they were a thing.

"It's-"

"Please," she gave him an imploring look. He let out a sigh and nodded.

"Mommy!" Mara came running up. "Look what I found! Ain't it pretty?" Mara held out a smooth blue rock to her mother.

"It's beautiful, where did you find it?" Hayden bent down to her level and gave her a small smile.

"In the ground..." she shrugged. "I was diggin' an' it was jus' there."

"Well it's awesome."

"Where's Jonah, I wanna show him?"

"He's helping Daryl, you'll probably have to wait until later..." Mara pouted a little.

"I'm gonna go show Sophia an' Eliza," she decided.

"Be careful."

She finished with the clothes and stood there for a moment, she even hung up the clothes that Lori was supposed to, even though Hayden felt like Lori should do _something_. She decided that Shane probably was going to be gone for a while so she decided to go check on Jonah. She made her way over to the Dixons' camp but Daryl wasn't there. She had somehow avoided Merle up until now and it was too late to continue avoiding him because he looked up before she could walk away.

"Where ya think yer goin' I don' mind lookin' at that nice ass a yers but 'm over here," Merle said, grinning.

"I was just looking for my son," she wanted to avoid conflict as much as possible and she knew that if Merle was as bad as everyone said he was, they would probably have problems.

"Ya can always wait for 'im, they prolly won' be back fer hours though, but dat's plenty of time fer us to y'know, fool 'round a bit."

"Thanks but no thanks," she said, biting her tongue. She wanted so badly to just leave. She did realize that Daryl definitely wasn't like this, not from what she had seen. He was too quiet for that.

He mumbled something offensive that Hayden didn't really care about, so she simply ignored it, rolled her eyes, and continued on her way back to the main camp.

Shane came back from his 'walk' with Lori and found that Hayden wasn't where she had been. He frowned, he probably shouldn't have been gone so long, but it was really Lori's fault.

"Hey, there you are," Hayden's voice caught his attention and he looked over his shoulder to see her making her way to him.

"Yeah, uh sorry 'bout that. We can go now if ya want," he offered with a small smile. She simply nodded. He led her to his jeep that already had a gun bag in the back.

"I hope that I didn't cause any problems with you and Lori..."

"What do ya mean?"

"You two are 'together' aren't you?"

"Is it obvious or-"

"No...I just...I kind of assumed."

Shane supposed that they weren't hiding it well, not to Hayden at least. "Think anybody else knows?"

"No, I think you're fine..." Hayden didn't know how Lori could move on after her husband had died with a snap of her fingers. It had not been no where near long enough for Hayden to move on, she didn't know if she ever could, or if she even deserved to be allowed to move on. She never felt like she deserved Daren to begin with, he was better than she was in every way. He had never cheated on her and he probably had never even considered it. He certainly never lied to her either and she assumed that she would never find anybody that could ever compare to him.

Shane pulled into an empty field with a house nearby. There was a fence that had likely kept in kids or dogs at one point in time that Shane decided to use for to set up her targets. He put up empty cans before walking back to her. "Got a gun?" he asked. She nodded and pulled it out of the back of her waistband. She wished that she had a holster to put it in because she didn't know if that was the safest place to have a gun. What if it went off? It seemed rather silly too her, plus, she had to reach behind her just to get it. "Good, now hol' it with both hands out in front of ya," he instructed. "I want ya to line up whatever yer gonna try to hit with this part right here," he touched the raised part of the gun that she needed to use as her line of sight. "Careful of the kickback."

Hayden picked the can in the middle and lined up her sight in the middle, just as Shane had told her to. She used her right index finger to squeeze the trigger-which took more force than she thought that it would and the recoil hurt her shoulders a little but she stood firm, rather than allowing it to move her. Unfortunately, the loud bang made her eyes close on their own accord and she missed where the shot went.

"Close," Shane commented. "Lil' higher this time." She rose the gun back up and aimed it at the can, two inches higher than she had before and squeezed the trigger. This time, the recoil caused minimal pain and she hit her target, successfully knocking the can off of the fence.

"I did it!" she exclaimed. Shane gave her a happy nod, surprised that she was already catching on. He was sure that very soon, she would be able to hit the targets effortlessly, but she still needed some work if she would want to hit walkers.

**AN: Sorry, it's a little shorter than the other two have been, I just didn't see where else to take it. You're reviews are so lovely, and we will soon find out why Shane hasn't seen his family in so many years.**


	4. Chapter 4

**2002**

_"'M reenlisting," Daren twenty-one year old Daren told eighteen year old Hayden as they rode in the car to the airport because he was flying back to Fort Worth-Where he was stationed-today. _

_ "What?" she looked over at him from the passenger seat before pushing her dark hair out of her face and looking at him as if he had grown a second head._

_ "'S my responsibility to my country, Hayden, 'm doing this for ya because I love ya."_

_ "What about the family we went to have? Five kids, all two years apart? I don't want to be in my forties and be having kids...You've served your country. I thought we talked about this?"_

_ "We did but yer not over there. Ya don' see what I do, ya don't kno' what it's like..."_

_ "You've been in the army for nearly four years...We've been talking about all of this for the past two...Do you not realize what you're asking me? I have to be without you for the better part of five more years...One was already two much! I started marking days on the calendar for Christ's sake..." She had already moved out to the middle of nowhere for him, she had left her life in Atlanta because she met a guy that she fell in love when she drove through the tiny town. _

_ "I kno', but Hay-"_

_ "Just don't...Okay? You've clearly made up your mind and there's nothing I can do to stop it," she brought down the mirror from visor and tried to focus on something other than him. She noticed Shane, Daren's older brother in the back seat for the first time. Shane looked like he felt kind of awkward, being as he had to witness their fighting. _

_ "Hayden, this don' mean I don' love ya. I do...I jus'..." _

_ "I know. Shane, can you hand me my bag from back there?" she looked to the other man. It was amazing how similar Daren and Shane were. Daren was two years younger but they both had the same deep brown eyes and the same dark brown hair, their ears were different though. Shane's stuck out more while Daren's were kind of small, like their mother's._

_ "Here," Shane passed Hayden her brown purse and she thanked him before digging around for her chap stick. _

_ "Why're ya puttin' all that makeup on anyway?" Daren looked over at her with a questioning look. _

_ "This is chap stick, Daren, that's not makeup...And I put on the rest of the shit to look pretty for _ you_," she told him in her most annoyed tone. "You don't complain about my makeup any other time I have it on." _

_ Daren knew that he wasn't going to be able to win with her so he just dropped it and left the car in an awkward silence. _

_ Shane felt the most awkward of anyone. He hated being around couples when they fought, which seemed to happen a lot. Rick and Lori always argued around him and Hayden and Daren too, sometimes it seemed like-when he was single anyway-he was the awkward fifth wheel. _

_ "So how's work going, Shane?" Hayden asked, looking at him in the mirror. She was just trying to ignore the tension between herself and Daren. _

_ "It's good. Kinda borin' sometimes but good," he replied. "What 'bout you?" He wanted there to be a conversation so he didn't want to let this one die so quickly._

_ "I just got fired, actually..."_

_ "If y'all 're gonna be short on rent 'er somethin' I can-"_

_ "We'll be fine," Daren cut his brother off. He didn't like the idea of not being able to provide for his own. _

_ "I was jus' offerin'," sometimes, Shane felt like he could only talk to Hayden, they spent a lot of time together also, which probably made things easier for them to become friends. They shared a house after all and they knew stuff about each other that Daren didn't because he was never around. _

_ "It was nice of him to offer," Hayden said in Shane's defense. "Just because you're pissed at me doesn't mean that you've gotta be mean to Shane."_

_ Daren wanted to say what had been on his mind since he got back into town. He hadn't been back to King County for nearly six months and he realized that in those six months, Shane had grown a lot closer to _ his_ girl. They were both jealous types, but Daren was worse than Shane and he always felt that he couldn't trust his older brother. And, the fact that Hayden and Shane had little inside jokes and that they always talked didn't help anything. _

_ "Can you just spit it out?" Hayden could tell that he was off in his own world, even as he was supposed to be focusing on the road, his eyes kind of just remained still and he didn't do any of his typical tics. He didn't drum his fingers or chew on the inside of his lip while he was focusing on something. _

_ "Are y'all sleepin' together?" he had to get right to the point, he knew that if he drug it out, it would just be worse for everyone. _

_ "No," they both answered in unison._

_ "I'm not a cheater, Daren," she told him, rolling her eyes. "If you don't know me after two years...wow..." _

_ "Hayden..." it was too late, they were pulling into the airport and he knew that they didn't have enough time to start another argument, so he would have to let it drop. _

_ "I'll carry your bag," Shane figured that Daren expected it anyway, but he wanted to do it because he wanted to, not because Daren expected him to. _

_ They walked through the airport and approached Daren's gate. Hayden latched herself onto his arm and held onto it tightly. Even though they were fighting, she still didn't want him to go. _

_ "I love ya, ya may not think I do, but I love ya."_

_ "I know you love me...and I love you," she replied, letting go of his arm. _

_ "We're gonna have those babies, a'right...we will..." he stole her lips for a kiss, wanting to keep her close. He wished that they could have not been fighting the whole time that they were in the car, but that was too late. _

_ "Okay," she agreed. He grabbed her face between his hands and kissed her deeply. Her hands took place at the back of his head so that she could feel his buzzed hair, she had only ever seen it in person this way. Apparently, he and Shane both had their hair long in High School. She thought that they both looked a lot better now. _

_ "Watch out for 'er," Daren said, looking to his brother for the first time. Shane just nodded. They gave a manly handshake and off Daren went, towards whatever journey awaited him. Hayden felt the tears begin to drip from her eyes and Shane was waiting to be her shoulder to cry on, as per usual. She whispered an apology as she watched Daren's plane take off, they then left the air port and the long drive back to King County was nearly silent until they were about five miles from the city. Shane turned down the radio and looked over at Hayden, who was in the passenger seat and gave her a weak smile. _

_ "Pizza an' beer soun' good to ya?" he asked. _

_ Hayden removed her head from its spot against the window and smiled a little before nodding. "Maybe somethin' a little stronger too...I feel like getting drunk out of my mind tonight."_

_ "Daren said to take care a ya, looks like that includes gettin' drunk today." _

_ "Yep." Hayden hadn't ever drank before she met Daren and Shane, mostly because she was still under age but, they tended to forget that she wasn't so they all ended up getting drunk together. Shane was a cop, so he realized that underage drinking was against the law, but Hayden always acted like she was a lot older and he figured that every once in a while, it would be fine. _

_ It had been a few hours and Shane and Hayden were far beyond tipsy. They had nearly finished a large bottle of whiskey, not to mention the beers that they had. _

_ "I-I...I don' know what I'm gonna do 'bout your bother," Hayden said in her drunken daze. "Maybe I should just...god back to Atlanta or somethin'..." _

_ "Don' go," Shane told her. He didn't want to go back to having this house all to himself. She woke up early, cooked breakfast, and always greeted him with a smile. Whenever he had a girlfriend, none of them were like her. _

_ "I just...if he's goin' stay in, I-" she hiccupped. "I can't just keep waiting 'round for him." _

_ "So don'," the alcohol made Shane even more bold than he normally was. He didn't have a problem approaching girls, but when if he wasn't drunk, he would have never considered getting any closer to Hayden than simply being friends because she was his brother's girl. _

_ "Shane..." she trailed off, her eyes growing larger upon seeing how close Shane was getting to her. The realization that he was going to kiss her didn't come until their noses brushed and Hayden was far too intoxicated to keep it from happening, she didn't know if she would have wanted to keep it from happening if she was sober. She was surprised by how much she liked kissing Shane, his approach was different from Daren's. Daren was quick and to the point, she figured that was because he was never in town for more than a few days, Shane had all the time in the world. _

_ A little voice in the back of her head kicked in and she pulled back. "I can't do this...I...Daren. He is my boyfriend...I can't do _ this_, just because I'm pissed at him. I've gotta...do...something..." She started off towards her room._

_ "He cheated on ya," Shane found himself calling to her. _

_ "What?" she whipped around and eyed him carefully. Shane ran his hand through his hair and frowned. _

_ "It was a while 'go...When y'all had only been datin' for a few months...he tol' me that he was with one of the army women over there...He tol' me never to tell ya but...I think ya shoul' know..." Shane felt bad for keeping this from her for so long, but back then, they weren't close and since then, Daren and Hayden's relationship had been good and he felt no need to ruin such a good thing. But now, she needed all of the information and she would spend her time beating herself up for kissing Shane if she didn't know the truth. _

_ "You've gotta be...Oh my God...I'm...I..." she willed the tears away and met Shane's eyes, making sure that he wasn't lying. When his gaze didn't waver and he looked like he was being honest she moved over to him quickly and kissed him. Part of it was the desire to get back at Daren and the other part was the desire that she had to kiss him at that moment. _

_ So many thoughts were running through Shane's head, he had just betrayed his brother on a number of levels. Nothing was supposed to be more important than family, but Hayden was slowly becoming part of Shane's family and kissing her was like nothing he had felt with anybody else. But he wasn't sure if either of them could handle this. There was so much that could happen as a result of all of this. What if they even went all the way? What if they couldn't stop themselves? Then what?_

_ "Hayden," Shane found himself pulling back to meet her dark blue eyes. He wasn't sure how anybody could have eyes that dark but still have blue. _

_ "I know," she said, she had been thinking what he had and she wasn't sure that she could answer the question. She wasn't the type to sleep around, but part of her did want to do something tonight with Shane. She wanted to get back at Daren and she wanted Shane. With that realization, she kissed Shane again. "I want this if you do," she bit her lip, a little bit sobered up now, but her movements were still kind of sloppy and she was a little off balance. _

_ Before he could think about it, Shane found himself nodding._

_Hayden's head felt like she there was a herd of elephants running around inside of it and she felt physically ill. She was glad that she didn't have to work today, even though that was because she had been fired. She reached out from under the warm blankets in search of the alarm clock to tell her the time, but she didn't find it, she found a messy end table instead. She then started to remember the night before...not only had she gotten drunk, more drunk that she probably had ever been, but she had slept with her boyfriends older brother. It felt like the world's largest rubber band ball had taken home in her stomach. She couldn't believe that she had done that to Daren, even if Shane had told her that he cheated on her, that should have been ancient history...She hated herself for it all. She had to get out of Shane's bed. She had to. She ripped the covers off of herself and ran from his room to hers completely naked. The last thing she wanted to do was make things worse and put Shane's clothes on. _

_ Once in her room, she ignored her awful headache and put on some actual clothes. She would need to find hers later. Later, she promised herself. She then went into the kitchen and opened a can of Coke and left it sit on the counter, flat pop was the best cure for a hang over. She needed to keep her mind focused on anything other than Shane or Daren she had to-_

_ "Mornin'," the greeting sent her into a panic. She whipped around and watch Shane do the same thing that she had. "Wanna go up the street an' get some breakfast?" he offered. _

_ "I um..." she trailed off her voice died out quickly, she could not start crying over the mess that she had made things. She needed to just calm down and she would have to figure them out on her own. Daren had to know, she was going to tell him for sure, as soon as she could. "I'm going to...Get an early start on job hunting," she decided. "T-Thank you though." _

_ "You okay?" he raised an eyebrow at her and she nodded, giving him a small smile. _

_ "I'm going to go shower and then I'll be on my way...Maybe some other time." _

_ Before she could make her escape, the house phone rang and out of habit, she picked it up. _

_ "Hello?"_

_ "Is this Hayden Harrison?" _

_ "This it," she replied. The man spoke evenly, he reminded her of how Daren often spoke. _

_ "I'm Daren Walsh's commanding officer and I have some bad news, ma'am." His voice was accent free and he spoke clearly, but Hayden felt like something was wrong with her ears. "One of the newer recruits was horsing around earlier and he accidentally shot Daren..."_

_ "What?" it was like she was under water and somebody was trying to talk to her but she couldn't understand them. What he said went into her ears but her brain had no idea how to process it. _

_ "He was shot in his knee, ma'am. They flew him out to the hospital in Dallas and I think that he would appreciate if you came down to see him..."_

_ "I-I'll be there as soon as I can...I...Thanks..." She hung up the phone and took it with her to her room as she went to pack. _

_ "The hell's goin' on?" Shane asked. _

_ "Daren was shot! In his knee! He's at a hospital in Dallas, I'm flying out there. God, last night was a mistake...I...I'm sorry. We shouldn't have." _

_ Shane didn't say anything. He didn't think that it was a mistake, but he realized that it probably wasn't a good idea either. He not knew what ever inch of her looked like and felt like he it was hard not to imagine any of that when he looked at her. He knew intimate things about her that somebody shouldn't know if they were just friends. _

_ "'M goin' with ya," he still didn't want her going by herself. He would have to power though the awkwardness. She bit her lip but nodded. _

_ "We never tell Daren, okay? He can't...he can't know. He'll hate us both." Shane agreed and went to pack a bag. _

"I bet the whole camp'll be happy!" Jonah exclaimed as he helped Daryl bring back a deer that they had worked together to bring in. It was almost pure luck because Daryl was simply showing Jonah how to track and he noticed deer tracks and they followed them and there was this doe, just standing there.

"Ya did good," Daryl was really impressed at how quickly Jonah caught on. He figured that the kid would be more annoying than useful, but he was the exact opposite. Daryl was actually thankful to have Jonah, he helped out a lot. The kid was so willing to learn and he was quick to catch on. Daryl never had to explain anything more than once.

"I've never had deer before...is it good?" Jonah had come out of his shell recently too, he wasn't as shy as he had been. Half of it came from his purpose in the group and the other half of it came from his need to been like his younger brother. He wanted to preserve Jensen's memory and if taking some risks would do that, he would.

"Hell of a lot better than squirrel. Best meal you'll prolly every eat."

"Good."

As they made their way into camp, people took notice to the two bringing the deer back in.

"Y'all need a hand?" Shane walked over to them, seeing that they was struggling a little, the deer looked heavy and it was probably an awkward thing to carry.

"We got it," Daryl was stubborn by nature and he knew that they could bring the deer back themselves. And, he didn't like Shane much, even before he knew that Shane used to be a cop.

"Ya sure?"

"We're fine," Jonah replied. Daryl found himself almost smiling. That kid was pretty awesome when he thought about it.

"A'right..." Shane made his way back to the main section of camp by the RV and sat down of the log across from where Hayden was helping Mara read a book. "Daryl an' Jonah got a deer," he told them.

Hayden looked up from the book a little confused. "Got a deer?" she repeated.

"Killed it, y'know."

"They killed a deer!?" Mara gasped, her brown eyes growing large and her mouth left gaping open. "Why would they do that, momma?"

"We've gotta eat, Sweetie. It's a part of life..."

"B-but..." She slammed the book shut and stood up. She went stomping off in the direction that Shane had just came from. By this point, Jonah and Daryl had made it back to where Daryl and Merle had set up their own camp. "Jonah..." Mara said, nearly crying. "Why'd you kill a deer? It was poor and defenseless and you killed it! I thought mom raised you better!"

"Mara," Jonah started gently. He knew that was the only way to approach Mara. She wouldn't do well otherwise and it was the only way that she would listen. "Do you want to starve? We had to bring this deer back to camp so that everyone else could eat. We need food, those cans won't last for ever."

"Yes they will!"

"Go back to to mom...She can explain it," he was already giving up because she was far too stubborn to even try to argue with. Jonah had work to get done.

"But..."

"Mara, unless you want to see deer guts, I suggest you go," Jonah told her rather harshly.

Mara ran off screaming and Jonah just rolled his eyes.

"Deer guts!" Mara shouted. Before she could get back to camp, she got picked up off the ground, but her feet continued to move like she was running on the air.

"Shh," Shane told her. "Ya can' be so loud, 'kay?"

"Jonah said I'd see deer guts! I don' wanna see deer guts!"

"Ya don' have to, but shh, a'right?"

"'Kay," she looked at him for a moment, she didn't quite understand what had happened to her father or her brother, but she did know that Shane reminded her of her dad. They all had the same dark eyes. "Give me a piggy back ride?"

"Only if yer quiet."

"Okay," she whispered. He set her on the ground then knelt down so she could climb on his back. She giggled as he ran back towards the small fire pit where Hayden was still sitting. "Thank ya, Shane."

"Yer welcome," he grinned.

**AN: I wasn't sure where to end this one...I know that Hayden probably isn't very likeable right now, but y'all aren't supposed to love her as a character yet. She needs flaws to be able to go through some change. If she does start off awesome, she won't have any character development and I think that's what I've messed up on in the past. So please stay with me for a while and that was why I had to add the part with Daryl and Jonah because y'all seem to like them lol.**


	5. Chapter 5

"We need to talk," Hayden took a seat next to Shane on the roof of the RV. It was about midnight and she realized that they couldn't just push things under the rug any more. He nodded, knowing exactly what she was referring to. They had never talked about that night, after Daren got shot, it was all about him and she never broke things off, they just kept it all a secret until about two months before Mara was born. "When Daren blamed you for all of it and stopped speaking to you, that was wrong...I wanted to talk to you but-"

"Hayden, 's a'right. I forgive ya..." he replied sincerely. "I wanna go back to being friends. I coul' use some a those righ' 'bout now..."

"Of course," she gave him a small smile. "But, I've got something...huge to tell you. Please just...don't freak out, okay?"

"What is it?"

"Okay so um-"

"I'll take watch a while, if you guys want to get some sleep," Glenn climbed up the latter of the RV and looked at Hayden and Shane.

"You don't have to..." Hayden said.

"That's okay," he smiled. At that moment, she cursed his kindness.

"Thank you, Glenn," she climbed down the ladder he had just come up and went to her small tent, she was about to walk in, but Shane caught her arm.

"That's gotta be as uncomfortable as hell. We're friends, c'mon. Ya can sleep in my tent, stretch out a bit..."

"Shane," Hayden didn't think it was a good idea. "Do you know how much Lori will freak out?"

He just shrugged. "If she wants to get jealous over nothin' 's her problem."

"You sure?"

"Wouldn't a offered if I wasn'."

"Just for tonight," she agreed. Sleeping in that half sized tent was hell.

"Where's my mom?" Mara asked Shane as everybody ate breakfast. Jonah had already left for a hunt with Daryl and Mara felt alone.

"What makes ya think I kno' that?" Shane asked jokingly, giving her a grin.

"'Cause she don' talk to anybody else. Do ya know where she's at 'er not?"

"She's gettin' bit a extra shut eye, she needs it. Leaver 'er 'lone a bit longer, 'kay?"

"But...she wasn't in the tent..." Shane realized that they were starting to draw the attention of the rest of the group, but he sighed and decided to answer anyway.

"She's in my tent, more space in 'ere."

"Oh..."

"How's 'bout I teach ya how to skip some rocks?"

"Skip rocks?" she wrinkled her nose. "How do ya do that?"

"'S easy. I'll teach ya 'fore the afternoon's over."

"Can I learn too?" Carl looked over his shoulder at Shane.

"The more the merrier," Shane grinned. He led the way down to the quarry and started to instruct the kids on how to skip the rocks across the water.

Hayden felt better than she had since the apocalypse had begun. She slept great in Shane's tent, it was a lot bigger than the one that she was sharing with her kids. She stretched and made her way out into the main campsite.

"Anything you want me to look for in Atlanta?" Glenn asked her as she yawned.

"Um, nothing that I can think of...Jonah would love some books, I'm sure. But, don't kill yourself trying to get them. Only if they're right there..."

"You're sure that _you_ don't want anything?"  
"Yeah, thanks though," she patted his shoulder before going off to find her Mara. She had agreed to let Jonah go with Daryl on an over night hunt. She had done so reluctantly, but she knew that it was good for him. And, it kept his mind off everything that was going on. She knew that she should have been up forever ago to watch over them because they were her responsibility but she was happy she got a good night's sleep for the first time in a few weeks, plus with so many people around, she assumed that everything would be okay. She walked over to Carol, where she was folding clothes. Sophia was sitting quietly at her side.

"Shane took Mara down to the quarry earlier," Carol told Hayden, the younger of the women was surprised that Carol had known what she was going to ask. "Said something about skipping rocks."

"Oh...Thanks. Do you want some help with that?"

"I'm just about finished, thank you."

Hayden thought that Carol was such a polite woman, but she felt bad for her. It was obvious that her husband beat her, the bruises were evident, but everybody knew to just keep their mouth shut about it all.

"Well, Sophia, I'm sure Shane wouldn't mind if you went to skip rocks with them."

"No thanks, ma'am." Sophia didn't think that it would be wise to walk all the way down to the quarry by herself.

"You sure? I'm going down there right now..."

"Mom, can I?" Sophia decided that if Hayden was going, it would be safe."

"Be careful," Carol told her.

"Okay."

"So what's new, Soph?"

"Soph?" the little girl looked up at her and Hayden shrugged.

"Nickname. If you don't like it, I won't call you that."

"No, it's okay..." Sophia kind of liked it actually, it was something different. "Nothing's really new..."

"I know the feeling..." the walk to the quarry was a short one and once they got there, the giggling was loud and it was obvious that they were all having a good time.

"No! Put me down!" Mara yelled happily. Shane tossed her in the water, but not hard to hurt her. The blonde haired girl popped back up above the water a moment later grinning. "I'm gonna get ya for that!"

"Do it, pipsqueak."

Hayden couldn't help but laugh, she was happy to see Mara having fun. She stopped at the edge of the water and watched as the two splashed each other. Carl was hanging back a bit, he slung a rock into the water and it skipped three times.

"That was a nice one," Hayden grinned. "Watch this," she picked one up and it skipped all the way over to Shane, hitting him in the back of the leg. He turned around quickly.

"It was her!" Carl pointed at Hayden.

"Thanks a lot you little rat!" she wished she could pick Carl up and throw him in the water like Shane had done to Mara a moment ago.

"Mara, I think yer momma wants to join ya. He ran to the shore and Hayden took off running, but she wasn't fast enough. She cursed herself for the lack of cardio work outs she had done over the years. He grabbed her around her middle and carried her out to the water, she tried to kick him and get down the whole way but Shane wasn't letting go. That was, until he dropped her into the water.

"Shane Walsh! I swear to God, I'm going to murder me! You got me all wet!" Hayden stood up and glared at him.

He couldn't help but smirk. She splashed water at him and just rolled her eyes.

"Pervert! You know that wasn't what I meant. Pay back will come, you just watch."

"I'm shakin'," he said sarcastically.

She had to plot her revenge. She remembered a time when they always played pranks on each other, that was many years ago, but it was a happier time that she missed a lot.

Everyone ended up back at camp much later, after they had dried off and calmed down a little. Lori decided to cut Carl's hair and Mara had talked Hayden into playing dolls with her. Everything was relaxed until a loud, squealing, car alarm caught their attention. Shane jumped up the go investigate. Dale was on watch and he looked up at the older man.

"Talk to me. What is it?"

"Stolen car's my guess."

They were awaiting the return of the group that had left much earlier with Glenn. Last they had heard, they were stuck in the department store, but maybe, just maybe they made it out. A red Dodge Challenger sped into the camp and stopped just in front of the RV.

Hayden rose from her spot on the ground next to Mara and told her to stay put. She walked over in front of the RV and after being bombarded by questions from Amy, Glenn walked over to her.

"Everything alright?" Hayden looked at him worriedly.

"Yeah, a new guy helped us get out...well after he got us trapped."

"New guy?"

"Some sheriff came ridin' in."

A big truck pulled in and some of the other group members hopped out. Hayden walked over to Shane and stood by him just as Mara came running over, despite her mother's command. Mara frowned sadly, seeing the one of the families reunite, she didn't fully understand everything that had happened with her dad, but she knew that he wasn't there anymore and that made her sad. The sadness got even worse when another man got out of the truck. Carl ran to him yelling "Dad!" She wished that he dad would just show up out of the blue like that.

"Hey, come here," Hayden picked Mara up and kissed her head.

"I want daddy back," she began sobbing. "I miss him."

Hayden frowned deeply. She walked away with her daughter in her arms over to the tent that they had been sleeping in and set Mara down so that she could look at her.

"Honey, I'm so sorry that your daddy's not here...I want him back too, but...I...That's just not going to happen. I'm sorry...I'm so sorry," Hayden wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand and started to stand up but Mara wrapped her tiny arms around her mother and they cried together for a long few minutes.

Hayden felt bad for leaving Mara alone in Shane's tent, but she needed to talk to Shane and he was on watch. She would be able to see the tent from the RV. Shane had talked her into sleeping in there again that night because of how much more comfortable it was and he told her to bring Mara along because Jonah was still off on a hunt with Daryl. She climbed the cool metal rungs of the ladder that led to the top of the RV and she took the seat next to Shane.

"I'm sorry about everything with Lori and all," she began. She didn't want to start with what she needed to tell him because it wasn't going to be easy to spit out.

"Nothin' ya coul' control..." he replied, absent mindedly staring off into the distance.

It was twice now that Shane had gotten himself hurt for falling for a woman who was in a relationship. With Hayden, he knew that she was with his brother, who he knew was alive. But with Lori, he thought that Rick was dead and so did she.

"I know," she patted his arm, hoping to offer him some sort of comfort. "Remember when I told you that I had something to tell you?"

He looked at her for the first time since she had been up there and nodded. She frowned, trying to find the words.

"Promise me you won't hate me?"

"Why woul' I hate ya?" he asked.

"Promise, okay? I can't lose you..." he was the only friend that she really had. He was the only one that she could speak freely to and she didn't want to ruin that.

"I promise," he agreed.

She swallowed the large lump that was forming in her throat before she began to speak. "So, well...Jonah. Jonah he..." she wiped the sweat from her palms and tried to gather herself. It was easier said than done. She didn't understand why it was so difficult to spit out. She had never told anybody before, she had kept all of this to herself for many years now and she needed to get it out, once and for all. "I would've told you this morning but Glenn and everything. This is probably a really shitty time to tell you but..." she trailed off again.

"Tell me," he said.

"Jonah isn't Daren's kid..." she said, hoping that she wouldn't have to actually say it.

"What do ya mean?" Shane asked. That was the whole reason that they had gotten married when they did. A few weeks after Daren had been shot she discovered that she was pregnant and they had to get married.

"He's yours, okay?" she finally spat out. "He's yours..." she repeated.

**AN: What did you think? Big reveal! I'll get into it more next chapter, but I wanted to do a cliffhanger here. I'm evil, I know. If you wanna see what the characters look like, check out my new cover photo, I did it myself today 'cause I was bored :). Reviews are great. **


	6. Chapter 6

It was kind of hard for Shane to process. He had a son. It wasn't so much that though, it was the fact that he had a son with his brother's wife. Hayden went by back to the tent once he told Shane about his child, and for that, Shane was thankful. He was thankful that he wouldn't have to sit beside her and see the woman that had kept the largest secret imaginable from him. He wondered if Daren had any idea, and how had she known that Jonah was his? Thinking about it though, they did look rather similar. Jonah had Shane's eyes, when he thought about it. Daren's eyes were brown too, but they were lighter, Shane's were so dark that they could almost be black sometimes, but that was how their father's eyes were. He had always figured that it had been genetically passed down.

He just didn't know what to do. All he could do was try to ignore it all and pretend that nothing was wrong. Hayden had been write about the fact that it was a pretty bad time for him to get any other news like that. He had a lot of stuff going on right now and he didn't know how to deal with anything.

"Come get water with me," Shane murmured as he walked past Hayden. She was headed towards the campfire and she had obviously just got up.

"Why?"

"Need ta talk to ya."

She nodded slowly, she should have expected this. She followed him to his Jeep and he pulled out of the camp before driving down the road for a short while before pulling over.

"Hayden," he said.

"I know that you've got a lot of questions but-" His hand rested on the side of her neck below her jaw and he pressed his lips to hers. She put her hand on his shoulder and pushed him back.

"Don't kiss me," she said. "Don't kiss me because you're upset over Lori..." She turned away from him and stared at the unmoving road.

"I ain't upset over 'er," he didn't move to start the car.

"If not for that reason, don't do it because of Daren. I'm not ready to move on and just let all of that go way...okay?"

"'M sorry..."

"I figured that you wanted to know about Jonah..." Hayden trailed off.

"Yeah, I do..." he agreed. "How do ya know he's mine?"

"When Daren was back that weekend, we didn't sleep together...He was too drunk to even remember and I wasn't. It was my turn to be the designated driver and I just let him think that we did..." She knew that it was wrong of her, she should have told Daren that she was pregnant with Shane's baby, but Daren was just overly happy and it was the one thing that made him smile once he found out that his leg was permanently messed up.

"Jesus Hayden, an' ya couldn't a tol' me that ya've know all 'long?"

"I'm sorry. I wanted to tell you...but then Jensen came along and...you were dating that girl at the time and you guys seemed to be getting serious so I left it all alone..."

"He coulda 'least known me! He barely knows who I am now!"

"It was wrong of me, okay? But it wasn't me that decided to get fall on my ass drunk and tell Daren the secret that we had been able to keep for six years. That was you."

Shane thought back day five years before and frowned.

_ It was February and Daren and Hayden were visiting King County before the newest Walsh member was born. They had learned that it was a girl recently and they wanted to share that with the few family members they had left up there. At this point, it was just Daren and Shane's mom and Shane. But it would be okay, they guys could go to their favorite bar and get drunk while Daren and Shane's mother, Hayden, and the kids could do other things. _

_ Shane was a lot further gone than Daren was, his words were incredibly slurred and he was barely able to stand anymore. "'S prolly time to call Hayden," Daren decided. She said that she would come and get them from the bar when they were done because she didn't want either of them driving home intoxicated. _

_ "Nah man, jus' a few more drinks."_

_ Daren shook his head and pulled his phone out. He called his wife and she answered right away. _

_ "You guys done?" she asked. She had been chatting with her mother-in-law for quite a while now and they she was just telling Hayden funny stories about Shane and Daren when they were kids. _

_ "Yeah," he replied. _

_ "'Kay, be there in like ten." She explained that they were done drinking and that she would be back before heading out. She pulled up to the bar and Daren deposited Shane in the back seat before getting in the front. She first drove to Shane's house and she parked by the curb. _

_ "Help me get 'im in 'is bed?" Daren asked. Hayden nodded. She led the way to the front door and bent down-with quite a bit of difficulty, being as she was seven months pregnant-to get the key he kept under the mat. She unlocked the door and stepped across the hardwood floor into his room. She opened the door for the two guys and frowned. It looked just the same as it had the last time she had been in there, when they were 'together'. The same dark blue sheets, the same dark wooden bed frame, end tables, everything. And, the furniture was arranged in the exact same way. Even after Daren and Hayden had moved out, Shane kept the house and lived alone. _

_ "Hayden," Shane said as Daren put him onto the bed. She faced him and he grinned widely. "Remember the last time we were drunk in here?" though his words were badly slurred, it was obvious what he had said. Daren looked at her with a raised eyebrow._

_ "I do, but sleep now, we can talk about it tomorrow," she replied, heading for the door. _

_ "That was the best sex a my life," he murmured, burying his face into his pillow. Hayden prayed that Daren hadn't heard that, but of course, that was too much to ask. _

_ "What?" he looked at her and she could see the vein sticking out in his forehead that he had when he was mad. _

_ "Uh...I can-"_

_ "You had sex with my brother?" _

_ It all turned into one big fight from there and it nearly ended their marriage. If it hadn't been for there being a baby on the way, they probably would have been divorced. _

"Didn't mean to say it..." he started the car and pulled back onto the highway. "Ya wouldn't a ever left 'im for me, would ya?" He had to know what her intentions were after that night. She did freak out the next morning, but he wanted to know what else was going through her head at that time.

"I'm honestly not sure what I would have done...Things were so complicated. Honestly, if Daren wouldn't have been shot...Things probably would have turned out a lot different." That was the best answer that she could give him, he seemed to accept it because he nodded and focused on the road.

"I don't want Jonah knowing," Hayden told Shane as they pulled back into camp. "He...he's got enough to worry about right now."

"He's my kid an' I can't even tell 'im that?" Shane glared at her.

"Exactly," she went off to find Mara. So much had happened and it was rather hard to focus on any one thing. She had told Shane the truth about Jonah, he had kissed her, then they had argued. But, there was always the fact that there were undead all around them that wanted to kill everyone.

"Momma! I found more rocks," Mara showed her mother the different colored rocks and grinned happily.

"Those are so awesome!" Hayden exclaimed. "Look at this one, it's purple!" Purple was Hayden's favorite color, she just loved the way that it looked.

"Ya can have it...For good luck."

"Aw thank you, Sweetheart," Hayden slipped the rock in her pocket and tousled her daughter's hair.

"Shane!" the blonde yelled to the tall, dark haired man as he walked through camp. He clearly was mad, but he walked over anyway. "Look at my rocks!" she said.

"Those 're cool. Where'd ya find 'im?" he didn't look at Hayden. He only spoke to his niece.

"Just around. Where'd ya an' mommy go?" she questioned.

"Jus' ta get water. Ya've done all this in jus' that time?"

"Uh huh," she beamed.

A scream pulled them all away from the rocks. Shane took off towards the noise. "Mara, take my hand," Hayden commanded. She rested her hand on her gun and was ready to pull it out if she needed to.

"Momma 'm scared."

"You'll be fine, don't worry."

"What 'bout Jonah...He ain't here."

"He's fine too," she couldn't consider that it wasn't true. She couldn't lose another child.

"What if he's not?"

"He is," she declared.

It took a few minutes of watching, but a group led by Shane made their way back into camp. On the other side, Jonah and Daryl made their way back. Jonah walked over to his mom, looking angry as he stomped over to her.

"Damn walker got my deer!" he exclaimed.

"Jonah Daniel Walsh!" Hayden glared at him. "You do not use words like that!"

"It's just a word, mom," he scoffed.

"Not to me it's not. You know what would happen if your dad was here?" a sinking feeling hit her gut. His dad. His dad was there, it was just that nobody but her and Shane knew it.

"Well he's not, we can't change that!" he stormed over to the tent and Hayden nearly went after him, but she saw that something else was about to happen. She had nearly forgotten that Merle had been left in Atlanta until Shane made his walk look purposeful as he stopped in front of Daryl.

"Mara, come with me, honey, we're going to take a walk." She didn't want to watch as everything exploded right before her eyes. She didn't want to watch Daryl be told that the only family that he actually had was now gone. She didn't want to see somebody else's life fall apart, just as hers had.

**AN: Sorry guys. I didn't know where to go with this chapter. I hope you liked it anyway. Reviews are wonderful. **


	7. Chapter 7

With much reluctance, Jonah had joined Carl, Mara, and Shane down at the quarry to catch frogs while Hayden and some of the other women-not Lori-did laundry.

"Hayden," Amy said, looking at the older woman with much curiosity. Hayden was in a daze, watching Shane and the children across the way. She couldn't stop thinking about the way his black t-shirt, that was now soaked, stuck to his shoulders like a suction cup. She knew how strong his shoulders felt. She had always loved his shoulders and his arms.

"Hm?" she dropped the shirt that she had washed a good five times and looked over at the blonde, who found herself giggling.

"I think that shirt's clean..." Amy giggled some more.

"Oh, right," she rung it out and set it with the others.

"It's alright honey, they don't make 'em like that anymore," Jacqui smirked, referring to Shane.

"I was checking on my kids..." Hayden halfheartedly defended herself.

"No." Amy shook her head. "You were _checking out Shane_."

"I'm afraid you're all wrong." Shane's loud laughter carried over to them and Hayden even caught Jonah smiling a little, causing her to grin widely.

Jonah scolded himself for smiling around his uncle. His father had always told him that his uncle had nearly ruined their family and that he was to never be trusted. Jonah wasn't sure how his mother had even look at the man. Mara clearly didn't know the truth because she was clearly attached to the man so quickly. It was stupid, in Jonah's opinion.

"Ya wanna get in 'ere, Jonah?" Shane asked, looking at his son. Shane didn't want Jonah to know the truth but he wanted to be close to him.

"No. I'm good over here."

"Okay," Shane agreed. He looked up and saw Hayden looking his way and when she saw him looking, she went back to working on the laundry. He frowned, noticing that she appeared distressed, even from this distance. She had a nervous tick, tucking her hair behind her ear or just messing with it in general and she kept constantly touching her hair and he knew that she was stressing about something. That something, he assumed, was that she thought that he was mad at her and he wasn't. He was just very, very confused and kind of lost in all of this.

"Shane, can we talk a minute?" Lori put her hands on her hips as she stood on one of the upper rocks.

Reluctantly, he nodded and made his way to stand closer to her so that they could talk.

Hayden couldn't help but laugh with the rest of the women as Carol said that she missed her vibrator. Carol was such a quiet woman that it just made it all the more funny. But of course, there couldn't be fun in the apocalypse, so Ed had to come over like a tornado and suck up all of the fun.

"Y'all best be gettin' back to work," he told them.

Hayden averted her gaze and went back to washing the clothes. She wanted to avoid confrontation. She only wished that Andrea would have shared her views.

"We don't have to listen to you, Ed. You want your laundry done, you do it," Andrea got to her feet and threw a shirt at him. He threw it back at her and a full blown argument started. Hayden stayed out of it still, knowing that it wasn't her place. She looked over across the water and saw her children running towards the conflict-after Shane. She quickly jogged around the argument and went for her children. They didn't need to see any of this, Jonah would know how to handle it, but Mara wouldn't. She was far too young and Hayden didn't want her to see the brawl that could start at any moment, especially since Shane was getting involved.

"Both of you, back to camp, now," she told them in a strict voice.

"But-"

"Mara, I said no. Go with Jonah. I'll be up there in a few minutes..."

"Should I tell Dale?" Jonah asked.

Hayden found herself nodding. She didn't want anything bad to happen, but that wasn't going to happen once Shane started beating Ed's face in with his fist. She was glad that she had sent her kids off so that they didn't have to see it. She cringed upon seeing Shane in such a rage, he had never been like that around her and she just wasn't sure what to do. Shane backed up a moment later and kicked Ed's side for good measure.

"You ever put yer hands on yer wife, yer daughter, or anybody in this camp again, I'll beat ya to death Ed," he started back towards camp and Hayden sent a sympathetic look back to Carol as she went after Shane.

She placed a hand on his shoulder and he whipped around to look at her, but his expression softened. "You okay?" she asked, his breathing was starting to relax and she could feel his quickened heartbeat where her hand rested on his back.

"Mm," he hummed, his hand was still clenched into a fist and blood was dripping from it. "Asshole needs to learn some respect," Hayden bit her lip and nodded. "Never a reason for a man to hit a woman..." She kept quiet and nodded again. "I ain't mad at ya, y'know..." he added, thinking back to earlier.

"You're not?" she gained the courage to speak for the first time.

"Nah."

"I'll clean your hands for you..." she offered. It was a small step, but she wanted some normalcy, she had always done things like that for both him and Daren when they all lived together. He nodded again and they made their way back into camp.

"What is going on?" Dale asked as Hayden and Shane made their way past him.

"Ed's a Goddamn asshole, put 'im in 'is place," Shane explained as Hayden led him towards the RV.

"Do you still have that first aid kit?" she asked Dale. She knew at one point in time he had had one and she really wanted to clean Shane's hands with rubbing alcohol.

"Under the bathroom sink."

"Thanks." Hayden walked into the RV and the bathroom door was ajar so she walked in and bent down at the sink. She grabbed it and looked over her shoulder to catch Shane staring at her backside. "I got it," she gave him a weak smile. "Come in here, I may need the water too."

"Y-yeah." he walked into the bathroom and cleared his throat.

"Give me your hand." He obliged and she used a little bit of the toilet paper in the bathroom to dab the blood from his hands. She noticed the cuts on his knuckles once she got the blood off. "I sure hope he doesn't have any diseases..."

Shane couldn't help but break a smile. He wasn't sure why, maybe it was her tone, he found that statement funny.

"Was Jonah warming up to you at all?" she asked. Shane's smile faded as he shook his head.

"He don' like me much."

"I don't understand why...he doesn't even know you...I never told him much about you and Daren never brought you up..." her voice quieted near the end of the sentence.

"Hayden, ya don' need to keep beatin' yerself up fer everythin'...Ya shouldn't feel so bad...'specially since he cheated first. Ya need to 'member that..."

"It's kind of hard to let it go when somebody made you feel like shit for it nearly everyday for the past five years..." She found herself admitting. She didn't want Shane to think ill of his brother, but Daren wasn't the guy that he appeared to be at times. She loved him, that was true, but sometimes he could be a real jerk.

"He did that to ya?" She nodded and frowned deeply.

"I can't tell you how many arguments we got into over that. I got so sick of it all...I can't tell you how many times I thought about leaving him. Just taking the kids and going..."

"What else did he do?" Shane knew that she wouldn't have been willing to leave if they were just arguing. There had to be something else.

"Nothing..." her tone wasn't unconvincing, but he could see the way her eyes looked watery so he didn't press further as she cleaned off his hands. She pushed her hair away from her face and sniffed a little. She tried to keep the moisture from leaving her eyes by pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. "Sometimes, I wish that things would have worked out differently." She exited the bathroom quickly and went back out to the rest of the camp where she knew that she couldn't cry. She needed to be strong. Despite everything, Daren was always strong for her and the children. She needed to step up and be the strong one now. That was her job and nobody else's because this was her family.

**AN: As of right now...I'm liking the chemistry between Shane and Hayden...but I don't know. She hasn't had much interaction with Daryl and pretty much none with Rick (yes I was considering him too). So, I don't know. What do you guys think? Please review and let me know :). But I do want everyone to read because they like the story line, not because, "oh, it's a Daryl/OC story". **


	8. Chapter 8

"Mommy, yer ring's so pretty," Mara said, admiring her mother's left hand. She loved the sparkly ring that her father had given her mother for their engagement.

"Y'know the story 'hind it?" Shane asked, hearing what the little blonde had said.

"Daren just bought if from the story, didn't he?" Hayden asked. She had never heard a specific story on it.

"No ma'am. That's my grandmamma's ring. Supposed to of been mine to get to somebody."

"Yours?" Hayden looked at him confused.

"'M the oldest, 'member?"

"Yeah, I remember, but...how?"

"He won it in a bet. 'Sides, I figured I'd never get married anyway." The way he said it wasn't the nonchalant way that he wanted it to be, it had a hint of bitterness to it that Hayden didn't miss. She moved her hand that Mara was holding and rubbed Shane's shoulder gently. He looked over at her and offered a smile.

"Jonah, I think it might be time to put the book away, just for a little while," he had been reading diligently for the past few hours. Now, he was using the light from the fire to read because the sun had set a few hours earlier.

"Mom..." he groaned.

"It's bad for your eyes to read for hours and hours and we couldn't get you glasses now if we wanted to..."

"Fine..." he sighed. "Will you hold it so that nothing happens to it?" Hayden nodded and set it in her lap.

"How's yer hand?" Mara asked, Shane, touching the bandage gently.

"'S fine," he ruffled her blonde curls and gave her a smile. She returned it and looked at him with her brown eyes, they were similar in color, but her's lighter. Shane and Jonah's eyes were a very dark shade of brown.

"Good. I don' want ya to be hurt..." Mara didn't want to lose Shane. Whether she realized it or not, he was like a father to her now and she couldn't lose that again. She needed him.

"Don' worry 'bout that."

They all sat around the fire for a little while longer. Some were telling stories and others were just sitting still. Hayden and Shane sat with Mara between them and neither of them were sure who had been the one to take the other's hand, but their fingers were entwined and their conjoined hands were between Shane and Mara. Jonah was on the other side of Hayden and he had started to fall asleep several times.

"I'm cold," Mara whispered, trying not to interrupt Dale's story.

Shane reached for the blanket that sat on top of the log. Usually there were some blankets outside just for this purpose. He handed the blanket to Mara and she turned it to the side and held it up to cover all four of them.

"Thank you," she murmured.

With the blanket over him, Jonah finally gave into sleep. He rested on his mother and allowed himself to close his eyes and fall into a deep slumber. Hayden remembered when he was younger, this was one of the things that he would do on a nightly basis. He would curl up in her lap and fall asleep in the living room. Daren would usually have to carry him to his bed.

"Where are you going?" Andrea asked her sister.

"I'm going to the bathroom," Amy replied. "Jeez, you try to be discrete around here."

That earned a laugh from the group.

"Hayden," she looked over to Shane who was looking at the now sleeping Mara.

"He's asleep too," she smiled, looking at Jonah. This was the first time that she was able to feel some normalcy. She felt like this is something that they could have done before. Everything was so relaxed and she was thankful for that.

But, it was the quiet before the storm because the next second, chaos broke out. Amy screamed and walkers flooded into camp. Shane picked up the once sleeping Mara and Hayden roused Jonah. She knew that she couldn't carry him, but he would be alert rather quickly.

He opened his eyes and looked around in horror. "What do we do?" he asked his mother. Hayden looked up to Shane.

"Follow me y'all," he commanded. He ran towards the RV, shooting walkers with most of the group right behind him. Once there, he held Mara up and told her to climb the rest of the way up. She did what he told her, crying the whole way. "Jonah, get up 'ere too," he told the boy. "Go with 'im, Hayden," he looked at the dark blue eyed woman.

Hayden was too focused on seeing everything around them crumble. She saw everyone trying to protect their families and failing. "We can't just let them die," she looked up at Shane. "They need help..."

Shane didn't want to risk Hayden's life or either of the kids' lives to go save other people.

"Please," she could see his hesitance, but she could not just let other people die. And, she hoped that somebody would do the same for her.

"Stay 'ere kids," Shane told the two children and he went with Hayden and began shooting the walkers surrounding people. Hayden helped as best she could, her shooting had improved and she was pretty useful, but her gun ran out of bullets faster than Shane's, which was partially because he had his shot gun and a hand gun.

The rest of the group-the ones that had gone into the city to find Merle-returned with a bag full of guns. They began helping Shane and Hayden kill the walkers around camp.

"Mommy!" a little girlish scream came from behind him. Hayden nearly literally dropped her gun when she ran. Shane followed her. The were both horrified when they saw the walker about to chomp on Mara's lower leg.

Shane took his shot gun and hit the walkers head away with it and then started hitting it mercilessly. Its brains poured out of its skull and there was bloody, squishy, gore all over the place.

Hayden pulled her daughter into her arms and allowed the little girl to sob. "What the hell were you thinking?" Hayden asked, holding Mara tightly.

"I don't know...Momma, I'm sorry..." Hayden picked up her daughter and stood up, still holding her close.

"Where's your brother?"

"On the RV still...I wanted to find ya..."

Hayden kissed Mara's head and looked up at Jonah, who was indeed on top of the RV.

"I tried to tell her to stay...she got down and then I couldn't get over there fast enough and-"

"It's okay, Jonah..."

With all of the walkers now dead, nobody was sure where to start picking up the pieces. Ever shred of stability that they had felt was gone. Walkers could come back and kill them at any moment.

"I finally got them both asleep," Hayden said, walking over to Shane. He was helping to clear up some of the bodies. It was new dawn and most people couldn't sleep.

"'S good...Ya shoul' sleep too."

"I-it would be useless...I'm just going to try to help out any way that I can..."

"Ya can try to help me..."

"Okay," she agreed, helping him to lift the body he had been trying to take on his own.

"I was thinkin' that we shoul' head to Fort Benning...They gotta have safety there, y'know."

"We can't be sure," she replied, honestly.

"We can't be sure about anythin'," Shane replied. He had a point, it was a depressing point, but it was there.

"I wish you were wrong." They both set the body down and he looked at her with a slight frown.

"Maybe ya can be sure 'bout somethin'. Ya 'ave yer kids."

"As long as they don't make mistakes...Shane, I almost lost Mara last night...She almost got killed...Jensen is already..." she turned away and wiped her eyes. She was a failure as a mother. She had lost her youngest son already and she had nearly lost her youngest child now. "Without you, she'd be dead too..." she hugged herself tightly. "I'm a terrible mother..."

"No ya ain't. Yer a great mom."  
"Yeah right...Maybe I should just go sit with them for a while...while they sleep." She started back towards the RV, but he stopped her by placing a hand on her shoulder.

"I ain't gonna let anythin' happen to 'em," he opened his arms and she couldn't help but fall into his his chest and begin crying. "I ain't gonna let nothin' happen to ya either," he promised her.

"Why do you put up with me? You don't have to."

He just shrugged. He didn't mind stepping in and being there for Hayden and the kids, plus, Jonah was his child anyway. "I ain't got nothin' better to do," he joked, sending a grin her way. She looked up at him, not leaving the embrace. There wasn't a huge height difference between them, only two inches, there had been a much larger one between her and Daren. Daren had been six foot-four inches taller than Hayden.

"Well your lack of things to do is beneficial to me, I guess," Hayden had almost forgotten why she was upset.

"Damn straight it is," he wanted to kiss her, he was going to, but then, they heard footfalls approaching followed by an annoyed scoff. Hayden pulled away from Shane and noticed Daryl putting a body in the pile.

"We should get back to work," she started to walk back towards camp.

"Fort Benning's the way to go," Shane told the group of people as they gathered. Everyone was there except for Andrea-who was still with Amy waiting for her to turn.

"The CDC's closer," Rick said. "They're more likely to have to medical research."

"They coul' have that too," Shane pointed out about Fort Benning.

"Momma," Mara whispered. Hayden bent down to her level and the little girl got very close to her mother's ear. "I wanna go wherever Shane goes..."

"We're not going anywhere without him," she promised.

"Promise?"

"Yeah, sweetie."

"Pick me up?" she kept her voice to nothing above a whisper. Hayden nodded and lifted her daughter up onto her hip and held her close.

"We'll let them figure this out, I wanna talk to you," Hayden didn't care where they went. She wanted as much safety as possible, but she would go with the group. "We'll be back," she ruffled Jonah's hair before walking off with Mara. They went into the RV and Hayden took a seat on the couch. "What were you thinking last night when you got off the RV?"

"I-I don' know...I jus'...I wanted to be with ya. They were comin' an' I thought if I was with ya...I'd be safer."

"I love you Mara, but you've gotta realize that where I tell you to go is the safest place, okay? Whatever I do, it's to keep you safe..."

"But...I...I don't wanna lose ya like we lost daddy..."

"You're not going to lose me," Hayden promised, she pulled her daughter tightly against her and kissed her cheek. "I'm always going to be here."

"Good!"

Hayden hoped that she could keep her promise, she hoped that everything would be okay for all of them. They had suffered so much already and she could not lose another one of her children. She hadn't even hand the time that she needed to grieve for her husband or her son. She hated that it seemed like she didn't even care about any of that sometimes.

Hopefully, wherever they went, they would find the safe haven that they were looking for.

**AN: I'm not very proud of this chapter...I'm sick right now...Not a very good excuse but yeah...so please review and tell me what pairing you like better. I think if I make this like a Shane/OC then I'll bring in a new OC for Daryl or something...I don't really know. Like one of the guest reviewers said, Daryl fics can get redundant and I don't want to have "Just another Daryl story" if that makes sense. Plus...I have like 5 Daryl stories already (counting sequels) and I have two Shane ones (a prequel and a sequel that I don't really like...) I'm rambling now...crap. Please review...**


	9. Chapter 9

**AN: ****ARG613****, Awesome suggestions! I will definitely take those into consideration...I hadn't really even thought of doing that! Thank you so much! I don't know which one of your ideas I'll use, but it'll probably be one of them!**

**I hope that y'all don't mind, but I'm going to kind of just jump ahead to the CDC part, everything happened as it did in the show. I know it's probably kind of crappy but parts of season one kind of bore me anymore and even if I'm reading a story I just skim it and I'm sure I'm not the only one. So, I figure that if I don't write that part, I don't have to butcher it and not do justice to the show so I can just get on with my story. So at this point-even though I'm pretty sure that I didn't mention him (it's hard to remember characters that died early on now...) Jim is dead in this story. Sorry if it's an inconvenience to anybody.**

It was a massive place. The building had more rooms that any of the group would probably ever see. As they followed the stranger into the elevator, Hayden decided to pick up Mara. She didn't know what they were walking into and she would rather have her daughter close. Shane stayed near them, feeling like it was his duty to protect them now, even though the group didn't end up going where he chose.

"I'm scared," Mara whispered.

"I'll be okay," Hayden promised her, kissing her hair. "I'm here to keep you safe, it's my job."

"Is it Shane's job too?" she whispered this so lowly that Hayden could barely hear her, it was like she knew that it was something that she shouldn't just call out. Smart kid.

"No...I'll talk to you about it later, okay?" they were in a tight space and if Hayden whispered it, they would probably all hear her and that would defeat the purpose of whispering.

"Doctor's always go 'round packin' heat like that?" Daryl asked, partial curiosity and partially for the safety of the group. What if there was ten other doctors wanting to use them as lab experiments and they would just shoot all of them the moment they stepped off the elevator.

"There were plenty left lying around, I familiarized myself." Daryl didn't trust Jenner. Not one bit. He had always been suspicious, but this guy gave him a reason to be. He hadn't told them anything yet and it seemed like they could be using the elevator ride as some debriefing time. He could give them the answers that they so desired and had been willing to travel into walker city for.

As the elevator hit the floor for them, Daryl half expected to see the ten other doctors locked and loaded, but he didn't. In fact, he didn't see anyone. He only saw empty desks and computer stations, which didn't add up either. Something was going on here and whatever it was, he didn't like it.

"I'll take your blood in here," Jenner told them, leading everyone down a hallway.

"Can we go last?" Mara whispered. "I don' wanna do it."

"Sure Sweetie," she wasn't going to argue. "Let's just sit back here..."

"I'll join ya," Shane offered, giving Mara a smile. "I don' like needles neither."

"She had a bad experience when she was little," Hayden informed him. "A nurse was way too rough and went all the way through her vein..."

"I'd be 'fraid if I was ya too."

"And she has a latex allergy," Hayden added. She knew all of the little facts that she needed to know about her children. She knew their blood types-they all had O positive, just like herself and Daren.

"Damn girl," Shane ruffled Mara's blonde hair as they took a seat in the back. "We won't have to sleep outside t'night," the brown eyed man said after a few minutes.

"Maybe we'll get beds," Mara said hopefully.

"Oh my, that would be nice, wouldn't it?" Hayden looked up and noticed Jonah sitting by Daryl. She kind of resented the fact that he preferred Daryl's company to hers, but there wasn't much that she could do about it. She had to understand too, the father that he knew was dead and like Mara, he was trying to find someone to be there as a father figure. The only difference was, Mara had made that person Shane-her uncle and Jonah's biological father, and Jonah had picked Daryl-a stranger, but a great hunter. Hayden felt like she should probably know the man better with how much time he spent with her son.

"If if there ain' beds. We coul' prolly make some with pillows an' blankets. 'M sure they've got some of 'em 'round here," Shane suggested.

"Not a bad idea," she agreed. "No matter what, we're all getting a good night's sleep. We won't even have to worry about having someone on watch."

The people in the room dwindled, they had gone to start on the dinner and soon, it was only Hayden, Mara, Shane, Jonah, and Daryl. Daryl was the first to let Jenner take his blood, simply because he didn't want to just sit there if any of the others went first. He still didn't trust Jenner, but there wasn't much he could do about it now.

"I'll go next," Jonah volunteered. He wanted to seem like a wimp he wanted to be brave and get it over with.

So, Daryl got his blood drawn and left, Jonah followed, and Shane took a seat in the chair next.

"You're brave," Mara told him.

"'M still scared," he told her. "Wanna hol' my hand so that it's not so bad?" he didn't like needles, but he didn't have a problem with them really. He just wanted to make Mara feel like she was important so that she would be brave when her turn came.

"Only if it'll help ya..."

"It will," he smiled at her and she returned it, putting her tiny hand in his huge one. When seeing the two like that, the size difference was shocking.

As Shane got his blood drawn, he looked up at Hayden, who was standing there, and smiled genuinely at her. If his hand wasn't holding onto Mara, he would've took her hand or something. There were times, even before, when he just wanted that physical contact.

"She has a latex allergy. Can you take your gloves off and wash your hands before you take her blood, please?"

"Sure, sure," he agreed.

Once off that was finished, they joined the rest of the group in the dining room. They were a chair short, so Hayden just had her daughter sit on her lap as she and Shane sat side by side.

"Hayden," Carol said quietly. The dark haired woman looked up at the sound of her name. "Would you like some wine?"

"No thanks."

"Have some fun, honey. You deserve it," Jacqui told her.

"It's not that...I really just don't like wine."

"This one here, she's a beer an' whiskey kinda gal," Shane grinned wrapping an arm around her.

"That's me."

"We've got some of both down here," T-Dog told her.

"I'll get ya somethin'," Shane said, getting up from the table, smiling at her. She just nodded as food got passed down that way. Shane came back a moment later and set two beer bottles down and two cans of pop. One Root Beer and the other one Sprite. He put the Root Beer in front of Jonah and the Sprite in front of Mara. "Soda pop for the kids."

"Thanks," Mara told him, smiling. "Mommy, can you open it?" Hayden opened the can and her daughter took it.

"Thank you," Hayden told Shane as she went to open her beer. Being as she hadn't drank in a while, it had slipped her mind how difficult it was to open the bottle, she usually used a bottle opener. But, when she was in King County, Shane had been the one to open it so she held it out to him.

"Damn girly hands," he smirked.

"I'd rather not have man hands."

"Mom, can I try the beer?" Jonah asked.

She didn't see any harm in it. It wasn't like she was going to get him drunk and when would he have another chance to drink like this. She went to pick up her bottle but Shane held his out first. He only flet like it would be fitting for him to get to have that milestone with his son.

"I wanna try," Mara said. This time, Hayden had to think about it because she was so young. But, again it may be her only chance so she let her little girl taste the beer.

"Ew," Jonah said, giving the bottle back to Shane.

"That's nasty!" Mara exclaimed putting the bottle down. She could barely make herself swallow it.

Everybody that had witnessed it grinned at the children's reactions.

After they filled their stomachs, Jenner showed them to the other parts of the building. There were rooms that they could sleep in, a rec room, and a large bathroom with _hot_ showers.

"Everybody's going to shower first," Hayden pointed out. "Wanna help me get cots from storage?" She would rather go shower when it was empty.

"Mm, sure. We sharin' a room?"

"If you want to," she said. His face morphed into a grin. She didn't say anything though. She didn't want to make promises to him. "Shane and I are going to get cots from storage," Hayden told her children. Mara had found a pack of gold fish crackers in the kitchen and was munching on them while Jonah was sitting in a chair with his bag in his lap.

"Can I go shower with everyone else?" Jonah asked.

"Yeah, go ahead. Are you okay here for a minute, Mara? I don't know what the storage area is going to be like..."

"I'm gonna go find some candy!" Mara declared before heading back into the kitchen. Hayden smiled, loving that her child was just that. A child.

They made their way towards where Jenner had told them the storage area was. They walked back there and found several folded cots.

"Shane," Hayden said as he went over to get a cot.

"Hm?" he didn't meet her eyes at first, but when she didn't say anything, he looked up and met her dark blue eyes.

"Do you think I'm a bad person?"

"Why the hell woul' I think that?"

"For everything."

"Wish ya'd stop beatin' yerself up 'bout it. He cheated on ya first."

"Fine, am I a bad person for wanting to move on?"

"Not at all, darlin'."

"I'm being serious. Look at it like you have no interest in the matter."

"I don' make a bad person. Ya have a right to be happy," he looked at her sincerely. "Got anyone in mind that ya wanna move on with?"

She bit her lip, trying not to smirk. "There is this one guy...He's really great. He's so good with my kids and he's really sweet too."

"An' I bet he's unbelievably sexy with amazin' hair."

"I don't know about all that," her smirk showed as he moved around from behind the cot and stood right in front of her. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and kissed her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and savored their first real kiss. The first time, they were drunk and the more recent times it didn't count because they were both trying to get over somebody.

They both realized that this kiss was something special though. It was something to make the day even better.

**AN: Ohio weather strikes again. School's closed and I've got nothing better to do, I figured that I might as well put this chapter up. Did y'all see the new episode? OMG! I think they're totally going to put Daryl and Beth together...I was totally against it, but now I don't know...I think that I could live with it...I would go for that over Daryl/Carol. Please review. **


	10. Chapter 10

**Shika93, I loved those parts too. This was one of my favorite episodes. **

**ARG613, I wasn't for it at first, but it's growing on me. I thought it would be creepy but I like their dynamic more than I thought I would. Yeah, me either...she's too old for him and she has a crazy child...**

"We should probably get back," Hayden stepped back and pressed her lips together.

"Probably," he couldn't bring himself to move away from her, not for what felt like a long time anyway. They finally got to work to push the cots to their new room and set them up though. About that time, Jonah made his way into the room followed by Mara. The two had met up in the cafeteria and decided to find Shane and Hayden.

"So..." Jonah started. "Who's sleeping where? There's four of us and three people.

"Mommy an' Shane 're gonna share a bed, silly," Mara answered.

"Why?" Jonah looked from his mother to Shane, nearly glaring. "Are you seriously going to do that to dad?" he looked at her with so much anger that it made Hayden frown. "He hasn't even been gone that long! You're just going to move on with his brother?"

"Jonah, Shane's nice. Stop bein' mean."

"You don't get it, Mara. He's not your dad, he's not my dad and he never will be! Mom shouldn't just replace him like that!"

"Jonah-"

"No!" he ran out of the room and slammed the door. Hayden ran her hair though her fingers and sighed. He didn't know Daren as well as he thought that he did. Jonah had always been partial to Daren over Hayden. Maybe it was because they argued a lot when he was little. Maybe Daren had told him other things that a child probably shouldn't know. She didn't understand why he disliked Shane right away, so her theory could be correct.

"Lemme go talk to him," Shane offered.

"Do you think that's a good idea?" Hayden asked skeptically.

"Why not? He ain't gonna bite," Shane needed to talk to his son. He needed to have a bond with him because if he didn't, he wouldn't ever get a chance to be close to a kid of his own.

"Good luck..." What else was she to say? She then turned to Mara and gave the little girl a smile.

"I'm okay with it if ya wanna be boyfriend an' girlfriend with uncle Shane...he's nice an' he was daddy's brother, so it's kinda like daddy's still here. Jonah's just sad."

"Sweetie..." She was kind of speechless. Mara knew more than Hayden gave her credit for, apparently.

"Mom, I'm not stupid..." she said.

"I didn't think that you were...I just...You're so mature for your age."

"Jonah, hol' up an' talk to me a minute," Shane finally caught up to the boy in the kitchen.

"I don't want to! It was your fault that they fought so much! It was your fault that we didn't do more things as a family."

"The hell're ya talkin' 'bout?"

"He told me. He told me that you were in love with mom and that she cheated on him with _you_! I know about this and I wasn't allowed to tell mom but screw you. Screw you for coming in here and acting like you know me or my sister. She may be immature enough to trust you, but I'm not!"

"Jonah, that ain't even-"

"I don't wanna hear it! You can do whatever you want, just don't talk to me. You'll never be one of my parents!"

Shane had to bite his tongue hard not to let Hayden's secret slip. "I ain't tryin' to take Daren's place, a'right? I jus' wanna be 'ere for y'all."

"Just stop. Okay?" Jonah shook his head. "Leave me alone."

"Everything okay in here?" Hayden walked into the cafeteria with her daughter and crossed her arms. She knew that Shane said that he would handle it, but she wanted to be there for support at the very least.

"No," Jonah replied right away, he stormed off back towards the rec room. Hayden followed him and he was the only one in there. He sat on the couch and crossed his arms.

"I don't want to talk to you."

"Why not?"

"Because you act like none of this bothers you! Dad is dead. _Jensen_ is dead. You act like it is no big deal and like you're happy because now you can be with _him_!"

"Is that what you think?" she asked, her chest tightening and pressure building behind her face. "You think that I'm not upset that your father and Jensen are gone? I love them both so much, you will never know how much it hurts me. I try and act like everything is okay for you and Mara. You dad wanted me to be strong, he wanted me to protect you two. That means that I can't break down, I can't start crying whenever I want. When it comes to fighting walkers, I won't be able to protect you both as much...I need your uncle for that and it helps that he is a great person that I know too."

"He's the reason you and dad fought all the time."

"What?"

"He told me. He told me that you cheated on him with his brother..." Jonah told her more about everything that Daren had told him about Hayden and Shane. He had said that Shane had always been after Hayden and that was why they didn't speak anymore. Daren also told him that Shane was a liar to never to trusted.

"Why on Earth would you dad tell you something like that?" Hayden was actually hurt that Jonah knew all of these things.

"Maybe because it's true!"

"Well it's not, okay? You're uncle is a good man. And it would mean the world to him if you just talked to him instead of yelling at him or ignoring him...He's family and that's more than some people have right now." Jonah didn't know what to say. He didn't really want to believe his mother. "Will you at least consider trying to talk to him? Please?"

"I'll think about it."

"That's all I ask, sweetie."

Hayden wanted to give him some time to think for and she wanted a shower. So, she stood up and walked towards the door. "Mom," Jonah called. She turned back around and he looked at her from behind the couch. "Why would dad lie to me like that? Didn't he love me?"

"Honey, of course he loved you..." she didn't know why. She kind of avoided that question, but he didn't look away from her. "I don't know why he would do that..." She wished he wouldn't have told Jonah those things. They had agreed not to tell the kids about either of their affairs, but Hayden wasn't about to ruin Jonah's image of Daren like that. She sighed, and headed towards the showers.

**AN: This wasn't my best. It was kinda a filler chapter. I hope you liked it anyhow...please review. **


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